


In Need of Healing

by TimeSorceror



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood and Injury, Healing, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeSorceror/pseuds/TimeSorceror
Summary: Anders has a habit of asking if anyone needs healing after a fight. If Fenris is present (and he usually is), the elf has a habit of refusing. This doesn't stop Anders from offering healing however, and in ways he least expects.





	In Need of Healing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost from Tumblr that was inspired by [this art](http://theunemployedrogue.tumblr.com/post/160843890184) that I saw on my dash and it made me think about how Anders often asks in-game after a fight, “Does anyone need healing?” and how it’s probably just something that he asks out of impulse, out of habit. Maybe, he asks it so many times and Fenris just refuses over and over until, one day, he doesn’t.
> 
> This is the story that came to mind. Also, it felt good to write something more than 300 words for the chapter fic I’m currently slogging through. So, enjoy. :)

Anders heard the elf hiss before he glanced down to see the blood dripping from his foot. Immediately, his first thought was to ask, “Do you need healing?”’

But Fenris hissed again, directing his ire at Anders this time as he grumbled.

“Not from you,” was all he said, before calling to Hawke to stop for a moment. Afterwards he limped to a nearby rock and cleaned the cut with a cloth and rubbed a healing salve into it. Anders was about to make an angry retort in response, but then he noticed that the elf was running low on salve.

Later in the evening, when they were arriving back in the city, he cleared his throat and asked Fenris, very quietly, “Do you need any more salve?”

Fenris did not answer; he merely flicked his ears back against his hair and headed into the Hanged Man after Hawke and Varric, leaving Anders alone to contemplate whether or not he should join them for cards. He ended up staying for a few rounds, but left before his losing streak cost him too much coin. (They always gave it back, knowing he needed it for other things, but it still chafed at him to lose as often as he did.)

As usual, he left for the clinic, where he proceeded to start up another batch of potions, his thoughts lingering on a certain cantankerous elf.

* * *

Another time they were running down the Wounded Coast when they were ambushed by a group of common thieves.

The thieves were dispatched easily, but once again, Anders heard Fenris hiss in pain and noticed that he was bleeding from several cuts. Inwardly, he sighed, knowing what the elf’s answer was going to be to his next question.

“Fenris, do you need healing?”

Predictably, Fenris’ response was, “No, not from you,” and so Anders sighed –audibly this time– and dug in his pack for the jar of extra salve that he’d packed. Fenris, who had tried digging out his own salve and finding it empty, didn’t see Anders’ offering until he looked up, scowling.

Briefly, his expression was transformed into one of shock before Fenris schooled it into his usual mask of indifference.

“I said I didn’t want any healing of yours,” Fenris huffed.

“It’s a _salve_ , Fenris,” Anders grumbled in return. “Look, just take it this once, and if you really don’t want anything of mine, then maybe start buying more salves instead of–” He paused, not certain if he should finish that sentence. Finally, he ran a hand through his hair, mussing up what wasn’t contained by his hair tie.

“Instead of what?” Fenris pressed, and Anders shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you buy instead of salves. You don’t want my healing? Fine. But seriously, buy more salve if you don’t want me asking you about it.”

He left the salve in front of Fenris and stalked off to see if either Varric or Hawke needed healing. When he came back, Fenris’ cuts and bruised had been healed, and he was pointedly not looking at Anders.

Also, the salve he’d left at the elf’s feet was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Time passed, and it had been a long time since Anders had had to ask the elf if he needed healing. Strangely, Fenris seemed to have taken Anders’ advice and always seemed to have a jar of healing salve ready for his cuts and bruises after a fight, including an extra jar should he happen to discover that his usual one was empty.

Anders wasn’t sure where the elf was getting them, but he did suspect that he knew of at least one source when he would occasionally discover one of his jars having gone missing every so often with a few gold sovereigns in its place.

He wasn’t sure whether to tell the elf that he’d just as easily give him the salves or not, but those extra sovereigns were sometimes the only thing that kept him and his clinic afloat and he wasn’t about to tell the elf off for doing as he’d asked of him. So he let the matter be and business went on as usual.

Until late one evening, it stopped being so usual.

Anders awoke to the rapid rapping of gauntlets on the clinic doors, and suddenly Justice was awake and fully present as well. He listened for the sound of wood splintering or the scent of armor oil and lyrium, but all that followed was the sound of a familiar voice calling, “Anders, open up! Anders!”

Hawke’s voice. Justice retreated a little bit, causing the faint cracks of blue light that split his skin to fade as he leapt from his bed hidden behind the illusion of rubble and threw open the clinic doors. 

Hawke was there with Isabela, supporting an unconscious and bleeding Fenris while Merrill hovered not far behind, her large eyes swimming with tears as she bit her lip in worry. Anders didn’t have time to console her however, and he directed Isabela and Hawke to place Fenris on top of the table he used for the rare times a patient required one of the more messy types of healing.

“I know you’re worried,” he told them as they joined Merrill to hover at the doorway, “but you have to leave him here and trust that I’ll make certain he still lives beyond the morning.”

Briefly, he wondered what sort of vision he made, standing before them in only his trousers and ratty under-tunic, unbound hair sticking out wildly in odd directions from a restless night’s sleep, but something about his manner or directness seemed to reach at least Hawke, who gently dragged Isabela and Merrill out of the clinic to leave him to his work.

Anders knew that Fenris would wake up asking him if he’d used magic to heal him, especially if he were fully healed after what should have been a fatal stabbing. So instead Anders poured half a potion down the elf’s throat while he got to work with a salve, doing his best to leave the elf’s clothes on while he did so. However, even after feeding Fenris the other half of the potion, he was still in pretty bad shape.

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing up even further in his frustration. That was when Fenris began to stir however, and this gave Anders hope.

“Fenris, Fenris, can you hear me?”

Fenris groaned, and his eyes fluttered for a few moments, glazed over and unfocused. He seemed to recognize Anders through his haze of pain however, and he coughed, violently and wetly. Anders frowned, knowing that wasn’t a good sound.

“Fenris?”

“Anders…” came a faint whisper from the elf. Anders, forgetting who his patient was for a moment, grasped the the elf’s shoulders firmly to try and help him focus on his words. “Fenris, I think you’ve got some fluid in your lungs. You might be drowning in your own blood. I need to use magic to heal you.”

“No…”

“Fenris, please!” Anders pleaded. “I can’t fix this with salves and bandages and I promised Hawke that you would be alive come morning! I might be possessed, but I’d rather not be a liar as well. Please, it won’t take long.”

Fenris wheezed for a few moments more before nodding faintly, and Anders took that as the best sign of consent he could get in that moment as he turned his focus back to Fenris’ wounds. With magic, it didn’t take long at all, however he did have to remove some pieces of clothing before he could heal some of the more bloody wounds that had caused the fabric to partially cling to the elf’s skin. Anders sighed, knowing that the elf was likely to ream into him about it the next morning, but at least he’d still be alive come morning to do so.

Yet, when Anders woke the next morning to check on Fenris, the elf didn’t say a word about it, to Anders’ growing astonishment. He even let Anders give him a cursory examination with as limited an amount of touching as he could manage before pronouncing the elf well enough to leave.

More astonishing still, just before Fenris was about to leave the clinic, he turned around and called out to him, “Anders!”

“What, Fenris?” Anders sighed, preparing himself for the reaming that he had anticipated the previous night. Fenris’ response, however, was not what he had expected. Instead of a lecture, the elf merely said in a gruff, quiet voice, “Thank you… for last night,” before turning around and quickly disappearing into the tent city, likely headed towards the lifts.

To his credit, Anders at least managed to pick up his jaw off of the floor before the first round of the morning’s patients began to filter in moments later.

* * *

Since that night, Anders could sense a change in the elf. Or was it perhaps a change in his perception of him? It was difficult to tell, when he factored Justice into the mix of things.

He got the impression that Justice liked Fenris.

Fenris had been a slave, had escaped his slavery, and now hunted slavers for a living. Justice found such a pursuit, well… just. 

But Anders didn’t know if the spirit had always felt this way and hadn’t noticed before now, or whether or not the cause of the subtle change in their exchanges was something else entirely. This had made Anders forget his previous declaration to the elf when once again, they were traveling with Hawke, this time on the way to Sundermount to seek out a rare ingredient for Solivitus. They had been ambushed by a cluster of some of the excessively large spiders that roamed the area and Anders was going about surveying the damage.

He’d seen to Hawke and Varric and out of habit turned around to Fenris, and before he could stop himself from saying the words he asked Fenris, “Do you need healing?”

And then he froze, his face going slack with shock.

Shock that increased when Fenris did not immediately refuse, and sat on top of a nearby rock, wincing in pain as he clutched his side.

“I… might. Took a bite… from one of the venomous ones. With the orange markings… it burns.”

Anders’ hands flew to the leather pouch where he kept his antivenins. He thrust one into Fenris’ hands and said, “Drink this. It’s the best thing for them. Let me know when it stops burning.” Fenris did so, downing the potion in seconds, wincing and shivering. After a minute or two, he glanced up at Anders and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said again, and Anders was once again astonished that Fenris had actually accepted his aid and thanked him for it.

The entire encounter would continue to occupy Anders’ thoughts for the rest of the trip, and not once did Justice insist that such intense contemplation was a distraction from their cause.

But of course that could merely be an extension of the spirit’s fondness and admiration of the elf. Certainly, it wasn’t because of Anders’ feelings for him.

Wait… feelings?

* * *

Feelings, indeed. Anders didn’t know what else to describe the things he experienced whenever the elf would accept his offers of healing. 

It was still limited to potions and salves and bandages, but Fenris would even allow Anders to touch him on occasion to clean dirt and debris from wounds and to stitch them up after when a salve or potion wasn’t likely to do the job. It baffled Anders every time the elf thanked him.

Their arguments began to number fewer and fewer as time went on, and it wasn’t until one fateful afternoon that Anders would at last acknowledge that they had stopped being bitter rivals and had become… _could_ become something else, if they so desired.

The clinic was mercifully empty that afternoon.

With no chokedamp or cholera outbreaks, no fevers or Bone Pit miners or laboring mothers to tend to, Anders was once again boiling water for bandages and salves. He was also taking the time to do some much needed laundry, so he was washing a great deal of his clothes, meaning that he was doing all of this in only his boots and trousers, leaving his chest bare.

It felt nice to do so for a change, because that afternoon there was a rather delightful breeze wafting in from the open windows above. It carried the salty smell of the sea but without all of the stink of human sweat, fish, and other similarly delightful aromas that he usually associated with the Kirkwall docks.

The sea smelled fresh and alive, so crisp and clean as it was. Accompanied by the sounds of the gulls cawing happily in the distance, Anders fancied that he could almost feel the call of freedom vibrating in the air around him. He closed his eyes, letting himself be absorbed into the sensations for just a moment.

Then came the knock at the clinic doors.

Anders gave a jolt, and he gasped a little when the too warm water splashed onto his hands. “Um, yes? I’m here. I’m not… um…”

Before he could finish his sentence, one of the doors opened, and Fenris limped inside. His foot was bleeding again, and Anders could detect a few glints from a few pieces of glass that were lodged in the skin.

“…not… decent,” he finished lamely, as Fenris was finally looking up at him after closing the door behind him. 

Fenris stared at him, blinking owlishly when he noticed Anders’ state of undress. Anders chuckled. “Maker, I hope you don’t call upon any of our friends in this manner,” Anders joked nervously. “Some of them I’m not sure I want to see in certain states of undress.”

Anders swore he could see a faint flush blooming on Fenris’ cheeks, but it was difficult to tell with how dark the elf’s skin was.

The slight lift of Fenris’ lips, however, was unmistakeable.

“Isabela would enjoy it, I think,” Fenris offered, stunning Anders with an almost shy retort, even adding to Anders’ terrible joke by saying, “as might Varric, with all of that chest hair. I doubt Merrill would care.”

Anders snorted, finding himself relaxing a little despite the strangeness of the situation. “It’s not their reactions I was referring to, though I agree with you about Isabela. Still, um… did you come here to ask me about your foot?” He gestured to where Fenris was still holding the foot up as he leaned against one of the nearby crates, dripping blood on the clinic floor.

“Because… I, um. I could help you with that, if that is what you wish.”

Suddenly, Fenris started as if from a daze, and sat down on the crate, wincing. How the elf had managed getting to the clinic all the way from Hightown was anyone’s guess.

“I was… cleaning up some of the glass… and accidentally stepped in the pile before I was able to sweep it up. I didn’t want to take a potion… and a salve seemed… most unwise.” Anders nodded, kneeling next to the elf’s feet with a clean cloth, and bowl of water, and a metal tool he used precisely for this purpose. “You would be right about that… though I can’t imagine how you got down here so quickly… may I touch?”

He always asked before he touched. 

“Yes, please,” Fenris told him, twitching a little at the initial contact, but eventually relaxing as Anders worked, gently prying out the pieces of glass one by one. “I came through Hawke’s cellar. There is a passage that exits into Darktown… not far from here.” He hissed when Anders tugged on one particularly stubborn piece of glass, and Anders sighed.

“Looks like this one’s going to sting a bit. Nothing I can do about that, really.”

“It’s… fine…” Fenris grit out as Anders picked up the tool he’d brought and eventually managed to pry the piece from his foot. There were a few more pieces that had to be removed in this manner, but eventually all of the glass was removed. Anders sighed contentedly, setting everything off to one side.

“I suppose I should go get some salve then,” he huffed, cracking his neck before he pulled himself back onto his knees, getting ready to stand.

“No, I–” Fenris stopped him, and Anders paused, glancing up at the elf.

“What? Do you, um… have something, ah… else down here that needs, um. Healing?” Fenris’ face definitely flushed at those words, and he spluttered a, “ _Venhedis_ , no!” in response. 

Then after a few heartbeats, the elf sighed and mumbled, almost so quietly that Anders had to strain himself to hear, “No, it’s not that, it’s… magic is fine. There is no need for you to waste resources on my account.” Anders’ brain completely bypassed the last bit and got stuck on the bit about magic.

“What? Really? Are… are you sure?”

“Yes, Anders!” Fenris grumbled, sounding very breifly like his usual self. “It’s fine. Just do it.” So, Anders did as Fenris asked, and he called upon his magic to smooth the gashes and cuts from Fenris’ foot until the skin was as unbroken as before. Anders looked up again to see Fenris’ expression, which was surprisingly one of awe… and wonder.

“It… doesn’t hurt,” Fenris murmured, and Anders sighed and he stood up with his things. “It’s not supposed to,” was his answer. 

Suddenly it dawned on him that Fenris might not have ever experienced true healing magic in all his years as a slave. “Whatever magic you might’ve been healed by, before… was likely not true healing magic,” he said slowly. 

“Sometimes a blood mage can use blood to… knit flesh and bones together, if they’re skilled enough, but I hear it… it feels like your body’s on fire when something like that’s done to you.” Fenris stared at him, wide-eyed. “How do you know that?” The wide-eyed look turned skeptical, then accusatory, and Anders held up a hand.

“Not speaking from personal experience, I promise. The Hero of Ferelden told me about it once, when she encountered this mage she knew from the Circle while she was trying to raise an army to fight the darkspawn.”

His explanation seemed to have placated the elf’s concern, though now that he’d gotten Anders talking, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“So, are you willing to divulge your reasoning behind this impromptu cleaning session of yours or are you just going to thank me and stalk off again?” 

Once again, Anders swore he could spot a rather unusual flush blooming on the elf’s cheeks as Fenris blinked at him, seemingly having difficulty formulating a response. “I, well–” the elf stammered. “I was hoping to, um. Offer you dinner.”

“What?” Now it was Anders’ turn to blink.

“You know, food,” Fenris insisted. “Like, what,” Anders stammered in return, “as in, a date? A dinner date?”

“I suppose, yes. Hawke insists that you do not eat enough.”

Anders wasn’t sure how to react to this… however his body certainly had other ideas about how he should feel. His heart began to flutter like a blighted butterfly in his chest and took up residence in his stomach. Maker, he hadn’t felt like this since… since Karl.

“It, um… might be easier just to bring the food here,” he said at last, and Fenris’ face lit up like the sun. 

“I can do that, yes.” 

Anders flashed him a tentative smile as he turned around to go put his things away and resume tending to his laundry and potion brewing, until he heard a soft gasp from behind him and he stilled.

“Anders?” Came the question Anders had anticipated. He’d forgotten that he’d never shown his back to any of the others.

Sighing, he set down his things and glanced back at Fenris who was staring at him with horror and bewilderment. Then his eyes were drawn to the scar on his chest. “Those… were whip scars,” Fenris whispered, and Anders nodded. “You can ask me about them over dinner, if you like,” he said with a soft sigh.

Fenris nodded solemnly as he stood to leave. “Very well. I shall return later, then.” Anders couldn’t help the slightly crooked grin that sprung to his face as he replied, “Just do be careful, if you happen to resume your cleaning when you arrive home.”

“And if I accidentally forget to be careful?”

Anders chuckled, and the crooked grin became a full-blown smile.

“Well then, you know where to find me if you need healing.”

Fenris returned his chuckle with a dry laugh that Anders recognized from the few times that Hawke or Varric had managed to drag the elf into their witty banter. Something in his chest warmed at the thought that he, of all people, had also managed to make the broody elf _laugh_.

As the elf left to return home, and Anders was left to return to his washing and brewing, his thoughts were once more lingering on Fenris. Even Justice seemed almost… excited at the prospect of Anders sharing a meal with the elf.

“I hope it’s not because of the lyrium,” he muttered, and he received a strange mixture of refusal and embarrassment.

Maker. The spirit was a little enamored with the elf and his lyrium.

Well, he’d just have to keep that to himself for a little while, at least until he could figure out what in the Void was going through the elf’s head. Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to enjoy it while it lasted. He’d heard it said once that love healed all wounds, and even if this was merely the elf’s way of attempting to forge a friendship instead, even Anders could admit that sometimes he needed a little healing every now and then too.

**Author's Note:**

> I tumble [here](http://timesorceror.tumblr.com/). Come say hi. I don't bite. :3


End file.
